


Differences

by Anticipatio



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Comedy, Culture Shock, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Karkat Swearing, Meteorstuck, Mind Manipulation, Teenagers, There's A Tag For That
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 00:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1760469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anticipatio/pseuds/Anticipatio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave and Rose did not realize how ludicrously different the trolls were to them until they were sleep deprived and newly paranoid of clowns.</p>
<p>Well, it wasn't that bad. Not when the trolls made some ridiculously cute noises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Differences

The trolls' most alien differences were not immediately visible- not when the shock and adrenaline of going god-tier during a suicide mission was still running astringent in Rose and Dave's veins. Besides the gray, chitinous skin, red-orange protrusions from their skulls, predatory teeth, and wiry black hair (Karkat's, in particular, reminded Dave of a yappy wire-haired dachshund his neighbors one floor below kept- in fact, Karkat in general reminded him of the hellbeast), the alien kids seemed to have relatively similar characteristics to the humans they created.

Disregarding Gamzee's penchant for stealing bodies, of course.

With this in mind, when the meteor was launched, Rose and Dave did not expect settling to be complicated by anything more than the conventional awkwardness of six teenagers attempting to mold themselves into a familiar routine.

They hit their first wall within the first day, and it took a long time go back uphill from there.

 

- _Xābidan-_

 

As soon as room designations were made, every single living creature retreated, alchemized a mattress if necessary, and promptly collapsed.

Or crawled through seemingly endless ducts in search of their newly-minted moiral. It was difficult to enjoy new moirail smell when he was smeared in the blood of his friends. 

It would have been a restful sleep for Dave, too, if someone hadn't come around his neck of the metal-paneling-and-cryogenic-tubes-filled-with-dead-bodies woods, all screeching laughter and maniac gestures. “Wake up, Mr. Peachcherry Swirl! No time to sleep in, not when we have _so_ much catching up to do!”

“Peachcherry?” Dave groaned, the angles of his shades digging into his face as he buried himself in his pillows.

“Well, yeah,” Terezi responded, “Peachcherry! Like your sweet peachy skin and your tart cherry blood. A dash of something sour- like that expression! Now you are the most ultimate smoothie. It is you.”

Dave frowned, not at the whole bullshit “Peachcherry” shit- obviously a made up flavor, but at “sleeping in.” He checked his iShades. 

It was hard to keep cool with less than eight hours of sleep, as only the most experienced coolkids would attest. 

“'Rezi. Terezi. T-bag. First of all: peach? That's racist. Some of us aren't peach, you culturally insensitive swine. Second: it's been _four hours_ , do you know how much beauty sleep a god- which I am now, _thank you very much_ \- needs to maintain a luscious body mortals can only hope to catch a glimpse of in their lifetimes? Do you think goddamn Zeus would have stood for this shit?”

“Zeus?”

“ _That's not the point_.”

Terezi didn't laugh, but frowned in a deep, exaggerated gesture of confusion, pulling off her shades and- 

Pause. Her eyes looked fucking red. Not Dave fuckin' Strider red, a subtle glint of mahogany that enhanced his entire countenance. If he hadn't known about the whole hemospectrum thing, he would have thought that her eyes were filled with blood or something freaky like that. He wasn't stupid; it was obviously related to her blindness, but he was familiar with milky or unfocused blue irises, which he thought he would see behind the opaque red-tinted lenses. The uncanny horror movie-type look made him sit up straighter and stare as Terezi lapped thoughtfully at her red sunglasses, now displaying a compact HUD. 

If she noticed, she made no mention of Dave's change in posture. Instead, she informed him in a formal, almost accusatory lawyer voice that it was actually four hours and thirteen minutes since the group split into their respective R3SP1T3BLOCKS. A minute frown twitched at the corner of his lips, he conceded, “Yeah, okay, thirteen minutes. Thirteen minutes of extra sleep, who am I kidding? What lazy-ass motherfucker would _dare_ to sleep four hours and thirteen minutes? God fucking help us, get the president on this shit. Recall beds, they're the obvious-”

“Yeah, okay!” Terezi interrupted, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose and crossing her arms behind her back, “Nice sarcasm! I should have you hung for your defiance- not to mention your rampant laziness!”

“We are obviously having a _huge_ misunderstanding.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about, Strider.”

“What do you mean? We are obviously very confused-”

“I mean _I literally have no idea what you're talking about_ .”

“Oh- yeah, well, I know jack shit about your alien brains- thinkpans, whatever you call them, but humans need a _minimum_ of eight hours of z's. Six if we're pushing it, and we are not going to push it. We have _three years_ to ourselves, for Christ's sake. Is Jack Noir going to somehow catch up because we slept in? Is this some sort of shitty boogie man we're talking about? We've got new intel: Jack Noir is the literal opposite of the sandman and he is on your ass if you so much as blink for longer than he deems necessary. Alert the presses TZ, we can't let this information go to waste.” 

There was another pause, wherein Terezi repeatedly opened and shut her mouth before making an odd, scrunched face as if going BSOD trying to sort through the garbage Dave had spewed. A minute later, she snorted, pivoted smoothly and, as she turned out, muttered a short, “Worse than Karkat.”

Dave would have insisted that he did not sputter.

 

- _Ta'aam_ -

 

When Rose entered the alchemiter room, the first thing she noticed was the fragrant smell of wood chips. This would normally not be a surprise, as she was familiar with the similar smell of alchemizing handsome wooden objects. However, what she saw was not an array of handsome wooden objects, but a metal table with a platter of some sort of dense, swampy gray loaf paired with some sort of white lobster-like creature steamed and curled around itself. 

It was definitely not a lobster. A lobster was much shorter. A lobster had fewer legs and appetizingly meaty tails. A lobster did not look like a _giant centipede_. 

So it was not lobster-like. It was more giant centipede-like. 

Kanaya sat on a rickety stool at the end of the table, reaching over and cutting a thick slice of loaf with a butter knife, greeting the newcomer with a soft Good Evening.

“Good morning, Kanaya,” Rose replied, shaking off her shock with a flick of her hair. And hesitantly moving towards the... feast, eyes flicking between the lined up alchemiters and the unappetizing meal laid on elegant tableware as she took a seat.

Would you like a grubloaf?” Kanaya asked, motioning towards the dense cake.

“I- of course, but... what is it made of, exactly?” Rose replied, holding out a thin China plate, decorated with symmetrical red-orange gradients shapes.

“Oh, do humans not have this?” Kanaya asked, offering a small jar of Churned Moobeast Excretion, “It's a leavened dough mixed with shieldbeast grub meat. It is a common meal for young trolls, as it is full of essential proteins and oils for healthy muscle development.”

“Shieldbeast? I'm assuming those are livestock of some sort.”

“You would be correct, many lowblooded trolls keep them as their main source of income.” 

Rose did not push further, as she did not want to be further off-put by the explanation of what a shieldbeast was, or why it apparently had “grubs” rather than “calves.” There was an obvious distinction between moobeast and shieldbeast that she did not want to delve too far into. 

And, to be honest, the loaf was quite good warm with a thin coating of butter. It reminded her of zucchini bread, nutty with a faint earthiness to it which would explain the scent of wood.

The centipede, though, was much more intimidating. As its segmented body was cut apart, Rose could see the glistening maroon flesh separate from the hard exoskeleton. Kanaya pulled piece onto her own plate with a serving fork, explaining, “This is a roasted leg creature. In the wild, it excretes a debilitating toxin, but when farmed they are much less dangerous. At most, your mouth will feel mildly numb for a short time. I quite enjoy it.”

“Well,” Rose conceded, cutting a thin slice for herself, “Never say I didn't try.” 

It wasn't that bad, and the numbing was quite refreshing.

 

- _P_ _sişik_ -

 

While he never formally _talked_ to Gamzee, Dave did catch the occasional flash of a shadow in the alchemiter block or the wet, unsettling slosh of what were apparently containers of blood. Sometimes, he could swear that, no matter where he went, the honks sounded as if they were _right behind him_. 

It made him jumpy as hell. 

So when Dave entered the alchemiter-dining-whatever area, he was more than a little shocked to see a mangy, hunched over figure with its head tipped back and a bottle of discolored Faygo (at first glance, it looked to be cherry flavored, but the slight brownish tinge just made it look virulent) pressed against its thin, chapped lips. He froze in the doorway for a second, hoping against hope that he could make an escape without incident because really, the last thing he wanted was any sort of confrontation with a psychopath even if it wouldn't _actually_  kill him. 

Gamzee's eyes shot to the side, glaring at Dave from the peripheries of his vision. His gold sclera shifted orange nearly instantly, pupils shrinking into black pinheads in his blotchy purple irises. He set the disease-flavored soda onto the table and stood up straight, taking a chunk of some sort of jerky and tearing it apart between his knife-edged teeth, all while staring directly at Dave.

It almost felt as if he were looking straight through the sunglasses. 

Gamzee opened his mouth and, for a brief second, Dave felt as if he were going to be chewed up and swallowed whole. He whimpered as the edges of his vision clouded purple and pulsed, delusions (the sword perfectly vertical from Bro's chest) of his own death flashing (blood poured from his mouth) before his eyes. 

“Mother **FUC-** ” he heard, booming in the space between his temples (gurgling and wet) , but before the thought could manifest (shadowless, colorless tendrils crushing his skull), an incomprehensible, animal screech broke through the haze and bounced against the empty walls and high ceiling. Dave wheezed, jaw slack and limbs rubbery as he gripped at the floor- when had he dropped to his knees? 

Karkat smoothed his hands against Gamzee's face, softly shushing with each rub of his thumb. His bloodpusher flip-flopped in his chest, and it took his best effort to not shake with the intense, never ending string of fear (your blood YOUR BLOOD your blood YOUR blasphemous _MOTHERFUCKING_ **blood** ) that bubbled up his throat and stuffed into his mouth, making it feel like a desert. He glanced at Dave, who stared back with his shades sliding down his nose without any intervention. 

Gamzee twitched in his hands, sclera going yellow and eyes glazing over while his head rolled to the side, dopey smile cutting across his face. Guided by his moirail, he stumbled over to the vent he entered in and pulled himself up, giving out a deceptively soft _hup_  as he crawled belly-down into the depths of the meteor's walls, Faygo and jerky long forgotten. 

Dave didn't comment on the tight, manic grin Gamzee gave him as he entered the ventilation shaft.

 

- _Sonitis_ -

 

The lab certainly had enough space for multiple inhabitants and their hobbies, but Rose found the disorganization a bit jarring. Her own mess was stressful enough, another four teenagers and one carapacian's hoarding habits simply added five more layers of stupidity. From this, she drew inspiration to separate all of the junk and discard of unrelated objects. 

Discarding proved harder than she thought when a nostalgic troll decided to barge in and comment on every little object she touched. 

'Comment' was a loose term. Karkat was actually emitting an array of sounds varying from deep in his chest to high on the palette of his mouth. Some notes were more distressing (at least, that's what she interpreted them as), giving Rose pause and forcing her to handle whatever she was attempting to sort with a ridiculous level of care no matter what the fragility of the object actually was. It was a little ridiculous when he trilled fitfully when she held two parts of a broken bow. 

“Karkat,” Rose started, arranging the bow's limbs parallel on the edge of one of the metal tables bordering the room. Karkat shifted uneasily on the balls of his feet before reaching out and pushing the pieces further from the ledge, “This process would be a lot easier if you helped. At the very least, please use actual words if you would like me to handle some of these objects with care.” 

“Oh- shit Lalonde. I didn't even- erm, sorry,” Karkat replied, stepping back, kicking scraps of fabric back with him. “It's just- A lot of this junk belonged to some hatefriends.” Rose picked at the leftover fabric and pushed it all into a pile, frowning thoughtfully. She was fully aware that there was at least a dozen previous inhabitants, which was cut down to the five she met and now the three she lived on the meteor with alongside Dave and The Mayor. No one had told them what happened to reduce the numbers, but they could deduce that it was something to do with Gamzee. 

It was also very bloody, if the state they found the trolls at was any indication. 

“Sorry, I'm just being a stupid fuck per usual. This is all fucking crap anyway, I don't know why we're hanging onto any of it. Holy shit, did Nepeta seriously leave some sugar cubes under the table? What was she even-”

“Tell me about them,” she interrupted, softly scooping the sugar off the floor and onto a small platter decorated with cats she found earlier.

“What? Oh my fuck, please do not psychoanalyze me Lalonde, I don't-”

“I'm not psychoanalyzing you, though I am open to that service if you would like.”

“Oh gods- no. Don't. I...” Karkat trailed off, looking anywhere but Rose's eyes and softening his expression, a series of small clicks popping from the back of his throat. The sharp sound trailed into a purr as he smirked faintly and added, “Nepeta was cool, I guess. She was flushed for me but I could never feel that way about her. Besides, she had her dumbfuck moirail Sweatqu-” he paused, glancing at the bow pieces and crossing his arms, “Uh, Equius, I mean. Stupid highblood masochist who could break you if you so much as brushed against him. What a fucking joke of a troll. He _let_ himself be killed, can you believe it? A shitspouting failure if you ask me.” 

Rose nodded and hummed at the right intervals, scooping up a pile of cards and sorting them into a more manageable deck, smiling faintly at the subtle purrs and growls behind Karkat's words. “I believe Dave talked to Equius at some point, did he have a weird obsession with horse porn?”

“Holy **shit** did he, it was creepy as all hell and he _insisted_ that it was fine art but we all fucking knew he probably pailed himself to that bullshit,” Karkat groaned, shuddering and faintly whistling.

“What sign did he have?”

“Er, Sagittarius, I think.”

“I guess that explains why I enjoy horses,” Rose chuckled, “He represents my zodiac sign.”

“You nookspewing fuck, you have got to be kidding me. This can't be happening, I'm in a fucking nightmare and you are my eternal torment. Pinch me- or don't, I'll just _bite your_ _stumpy alien prongstubs off_. WE DO NOT NEED ANOTHER EQUIUS IN ANY UNIVERSE.” 

Rose laughed outright at Karkat's distress, covering her mouth with both hands as she watched him pull at his own hair. When he began to do some sort of chirp-growl at her apparent amusement, she couldn't help but mention that he sounded like a nutbeast.

“Nutbeast,” he said aloud, mouthing it a few times with a scrunched up expression before sputtering, “A _nut creature_ ? Are you _kidding me_ , Lalonde? You are officially worse than Terezi, and that's saying something. Get fucked, you worthless primate, get fucked sideways with no lube. I am _out_ . See you never you _goddamn failure_ . _”_  

Even as he huffed and fumed, stomping away and flashing both middle PRONGSTUBS, Rose couldn't suppress the tears that formed at the corners of her eyes.

 

- _Mediocrity_ -

 

Weeks later, even as there was a routine established that could accommodate both species, there was something surreal (and, if we're being totally honest, intimidating) about the way the trolls passed time. While Dave took to rapping and Rose began her brewing and continued knitting, Karkat would often be found beheading dummies with disturbing precision and speed, Terezi would sentence her various plush dragons to death by hanging, and Kanaya would sip innocently at her reserves of blood kept in the refrigerator. 

They did find it amusing how their kindly hobbies seemed generally monotonous and overly-complex to the trolls, especially since no implied death was involved. 

There were very few common strings between them, and more often than not there would clashing interests with whatever group activity they attempted. Even as Terezi and Dave worked on Cantown with The Mayor, there was always some debate as to whether a sicknasty skate park would be built on a plot of land originally intended for a NOBL3 F3D3R4Z1NG COURT. Even when Rose thought she could pin down any aspect of troll psychology, Kanaya would always correct her and throw entire theories out, and vice versa, leaving both of them more confused and frustrated. 

However, both Rose and Dave could be thankful that Karkat insisted on movie night. At least shitty movies could bond them all together, even if shrieking grubcorn and popcorn fights made it impossible to ever know the endings.

 


End file.
